A Fan's Playground

For #DecRecs this year I will be recommending a hobby or craft each week!

Today at verity's suggestion I would like to recommend quilt-making as a hobby!

I recently sewed my first ever pieced quilt top and it was so much fun. I'm about to start the second half of making it into a quilt, which is quilting the top together with the batting and the backing to make a proper blanket sandwich, and I'm really pumped about doing that too!

One of the cool things about this hobby is that it can be like a whole bunch of different hobbies masquerading as one, but also, it doesn't have to be. Depending on which aspects are enjoyable to you, you can pick and choose your approach.

1. You can design your own patterns from scratch, for both the piecing and the quilting! But you don't have to, you can also make liberal use of the many, many patterns that are available by looking in the library for books or by searching the internet for options. Quilt-making is a hobby with SO many resources available, seriously.

2. You can put effort into choosing the perfect fabrics that create the effect you want! But you don't have to, you can purchase quilt kits with everything included, even the fabric, if you don't like that part. Or just find approximate matches for the fabrics used in the original pattern. Or just use whatever random scraps of worn clothing and linens and leftovers from other sewing projects you want!

3. You can carefully sew together a pieced quilt top! But you don't have to, quilts with a single-fabric single-colour top to show off the quilting design are a classic as well. And if you do want to do piecing, then the pieced top can be any degree of simple or complex. You could do a single massive nine-patch, you could do a top made entirely of postage-stamp-sized triangles, you can do all the complex curves of a double wedding ring design, you can do a scrappy quilt, you can do a freeform art quilt, you can do applique (where you sew pieces of fabric down onto a backing to create the design, instead of piecing the fabrics together), and so much more!

4. You can hand-quilt the entire thing, but you don't have to, you can also learn how to machine-quilt with a long-arm machine, or if you don't want to do that, there are places where you can pay someone else to do the long-arm machine quilting for you. And if your quilt isn't too big you can quilt it on a regular home sewing machine even. And this isn't technically a "quilt" but I won't tell if you don't - you can turn your pieced top into a knotted comforter, as a much faster way of connecting the layers of the blanket sandwich at home.

5. You can make lots of different things with piecing and quilting, it doesn't have to only be for bedspreads! Yes you can make a quilt for your bed, or a lap-quilt, or a baby blanket. But by using one or the other or both of piecing/quilting, you can also make pot-holders and wall-hangings and coasters and postcards and pillow covers and clothing and more!

6. The world of different aesthetics is also wide open to you. There are plenty of traditional quilt patterns and fabric choices you can make, but there's also SO much more out there beyond that, doing incredible things, in so many different styles.

7. You can even go extra hardcore and dye your own fabric if you want. My aunt used to do that and made the most amazing gradient-colour quilts because she had complete control over the shades of colour in each of the squares on her quilt top! Heck you could even weave your own fabric to make a quilt out of if you really wanted to.

All of this means that there are always new aspects you can choose to explore if you want to increase the challenge for yourself, but there are easy ways to approach it that don't have to be intimidating if you haven't done much of this kind of sewing before. A choose-your-own-adventure where the results will be beautiful and the process will be satisfying regardless!

For my current quilt project, here's how I approached it:

1. I searched the internet for free baby quilt patterns, and found one where I liked the underlying pattern and thought it would be doable with my level of sewing skills - but the way colours were used did not bring out aspects of the pattern in a way I found attractive. So I took that pattern and plotted out a variety of other colourways using the highly sophisticated tool of microsoft paint and figured out an approach that I thought worked much better.

2. When I had the design plotted out with the intended colour choices, I went to the local fabric shop and browsed their quilting fabric section for honestly hours, searching for fabrics that complemented each other, that worked in the design, that were fabrics I thought were pretty, and that were the right degree of light/medium/dark (the usual advice for traditional quilts is that they generally look best when you have a combination of all three!). I think it would be easier to come into a fabric store less attached to an exact specific colourway for a quilt pattern and be open to rejig it as the spirit moves and as the fabric options allow, but for this particular quilt I had a colour mandate as it is a gift for a friend whose nursery has a colour theme, so I worked hard to find the right colours.

3. Then I cut and sewed and ironed and sewed and ironed and sewed and ironed some more a whole bunch! I was very intimidated getting started on this part because I am a very particular sort of person and I wanted to be sure I was doing things Right, but once I got going I was amazed at just how fun it was. It turns out that piecing a quilt satisfies the same part of my brain that looooooooves to put together jigsaw puzzles, only with quilt piecing, you come out the other side with a useful creation you can do things with! This is like, a revelation. I'm breaking up with jigsaw puzzles. They're fun but they can't outcompete piecing quilt tops.

4. My plan is to hand-quilt it; I love hand-sewing, I find it very peaceful and meditative. I'm looking forward to doing this part, once I've basted everything together and borrowed a sufficiently enormous embroidery hoop from my sister! I'm going to quilt "in the ditch" (basically, just quilting alongside various seams instead of making any fancy patterns with my lines of stitches). It's a complex enough pieced top that quilting patterns aren't needed to add visual interest, so quilting in the ditch is easiest and most straightforward.

And then I'll just fold the backing fabric over the edges and sew it down to enclose it, and it'll be done! Probably not till after the baby's born at this point, but so it goes, I know someone who regularly does not finish baby quilts until the babies in question are 2 years old, so if I'm even just a few months late I'll still be doing well!

I grew up in the sort of household where quilts were normal and where I was taught the basics of how to sew from a young age, and then as an adult I have done a fair quantity of practical sewing which has strengthened my skills, so I felt pretty confident in diving into a relatively complex pattern my first go. And although it's not perfect, it's still beautiful, so I feel great about it. But you don't have to start at this level of complexity if you don't want to! Start at whatever level feels comfortable or intriguing or exciting to you! and join me in quilting!

I was thinking again about poetry I like, after revisiting Robert Service rather to excess, and thought I'd maybe do a reclist of 10 poems I like that you can read online.

Let's see how I am at talking about what I like about poetry. I don't have a lot of experience at that. Here we go!

1. Conscientious Objector, by Edna St Vincent Millay

This one gives me feelings and also I love the way it frames the whole thing. "Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to Death?" God I love it.

2. My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears, by Mohja Kahf

The solidity of the imagery is amazing, how thoroughly it brings you into the specific moment the poem is talking about, but also the specific story is a window into a much larger experience.

3. This Vote Is Legally Binding, by Ursula Vernon

So like. It's funny? It's taking an obviously absurd premise to its conclusion in a really fun way. But also: yes.

4. Million-Year Elegies: Oviraptor, by Ada Hoffman

Aww yeah dinosaur poetry! Okay but like actually this is so lovely, bringing an intimate perspective on a long-dead creature that scientists at first misunderstood.

(For those who are not dinosaur obsessed: this poem makes more sense if you are aware that when Oviraptor was first discovered near a nest of eggs it was assumed it was an egg-eating dinosaur there to steal the eggs, but it's since been determined that the eggs were almost certainly the Oviraptor's own, which it was caring for.)

5. Legacies, by Nikki Giovanni

IDEK it just like. Perfectly encapsulates in this tiny wee bit of writing something that feels really real and true. The challenges of communication!

6. Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal, by Naomi Shihab Nye

This one brings to life the wonder and realness and goodness of shared connections with other people, and it's, like, hopeful, but a sort of defiant hopefulness in the face of modern realities of racism.

7. Is This the Face? by Jo Walton

Accurate at capturing a mindset that can overwhelm you when you are in the throes of puberty, in the context of Helen of Troy being 13.

8. Catch A Body, by Isle Bendorf

The way it all flows trippingly forward, carrying you through a rushing series of thoughts and feelings and images, is just really effective to me at conveying the things it's trying to convey.

9. Translatio, by Sharon Hsu

One of those poems that just tells a story about a person's life experience really well.

10. From Blossoms, by Li-Young Lee

Really evocative, taking this really specific imagery and building out and off of it in a way that takes you there.

It's time for my approximately-annual short story recommendation list, wherein I tell you about ten stories I read in the last year that I think are particularly worth reading, and link you to them. I've been reading more short stories of late so keeping the list to only ten was particularly hard this time!

Without further ado, here's some stories to read:

1. Who Will Greet You At Home, by Lesley Nneka Arimah
A story about how babies are made out of physical materials and the blessings of your mother, and the lengths to which people will go to have a baby. Strange and sad and disturbing.

2. Probably Still the Chosen One, by Kelly Barnhill
At 11 years old, Corrina was the Chosen One in a land through a secret portal only she could access. Then she's left behind in this world, expecting at any moment to be called back. It's a great look at, among other things, how the political situation you're thrown into looks very different when you're eleven than when you're an adult. I love this sort of deconstruction of tropes.

3. Seasons of Glass and Iron, by Amal El-Mohtar
In which the heroines of two fairy tales (the princess on the glass mountain, and the girl who has to walk through seven pairs of iron shoes) help each other see how terribly they've been treated. What an excellent way of doing a fairy-tale mash-up!

4. Suradanna and the Sea, by Rebecca Fraimow
I love this story so much! The worldbuilding is incredible, and the characterization, and the relationship between the main characters, and basically everything. I'll borrow a description from the author of what this story's about: "Trade routes, magical fertilizer, and one girl's centuries-long effort to impress a woman who is already in a committed relationship with a boat."

5. The Nalendar, by Ann Leckie
Leckie has written a number of short stories that all take place in the same world, broadly speaking. You can tell which stories these are by the gods. I love all these stories (so interesting!), but decided to rec The Nalendar in particular. This story is about a woman who makes an agreement with an untrustworthy small god who's after something.

6. Extracurricular Activities, by Yoon Ha Lee
This one is a fun space adventure story! (Yes I am in fact capable of enjoying and recommending straightforward adventure stories, even if you wouldn't guess it based on the other kinds of things I tend to rec....)

7. The Wreck at Goat's Head, by Alexandra Manglis
About a free-diver in the Mediterranean, one of the last remaining in the 21st century. A lovely story of grief and loss and living, and I like how well-grounded it is in its setting.

8. And Then There Were (N-One), by Sarah Pinsker
In which Sarah Pinsker is invited to a convention of multiverses of Sarah Pinskers, and then one of the Sarahs is murdered at the convention. A delightful premise, and a really interesting story.

9. The Dark Birds, by Ursula Vernon
The degree to which this story is horrifying creeps up on you the further you get - it's really effectively done. It's the story of a family where the ogre father eats his daughters, as told from the pov of the current baby of the family.

10. Utopia, LOL?, by Jamie Wahls
A man awakes from cryofreeze in the far future, and we see his introduction to this new world via the pov of his Tour Guide to the Future, who is easily-distractable and alarmingly enthusiastic. This story is weird and incredible and I was very surprised to be having feelings by the end given how much I was giggling through most of the story. I love it.

Recently on tumblr I saw a list of "10 captivating short stories" being recommended, and there were just as many stories by Isaac Asimov on the list as there were stories by women. Come on. Really?

So I decided to even things up and do a recs list of ten short stories featuring only two male authors and eight authors of other genders.

This was not hard! There's lots of great short stories written by people who aren't dudes, available to read online for free. The only hard part was narrowing my list down. (Also writing descriptions of each. I'm really bad at pithy enticing nonspoilery descriptions. My apologies for the below. I did my best.)

Here you go:

1. Never the Same, by Polenth Blake
Set on another planet on a colony that isn't thriving, exploring the family stuff of the main character at the same time as exploring the reason for the colony's difficulties. It's complicated and unsettling in the best kind of ways, and has a wonderfully interesting main character.

2. The Perseverance of Angela's Past Life, by Zen Cho
I figure at this point I have recced my favourite Zen Cho story (The House of Aunts!) often enough that it's time to take a break and recommend other Zen Cho stories because she has SO MANY good stories because she's a brilliant writer; her stories are never a disappointment. This one is about dealing with an overly-literal past version of yourself who you thought you'd left behind, and it is lovely.

3. The Cage, by A.M. Dellamonica
Look it's the canadian lesbian activist community werewolf baby story of my heart. IT'S BASICALLY THE BEST.

4. The Tempting: A Love Story, by James Alan Gardner
Definitely one of the weirder stories on this list, and I love it for that. I haven't reread it in a while and I don't actually remember the plot? Haha like I ever read for plot anyways. AT ANY RATE this is a deeply interesting story and I recommend it! or it wouldn't be on this list, obviously.

5. The Bride In Furs, by Layla Lawlor
An excellent fairy-tale-ish story, with a good fairy tale feel, that is all about ladies, aww yeah. INTO IT.

6. The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal
It's about an aging famous astronaut who's been wanting another opportunity to venture into space for years. What a good everything. I cried and it was amazing.

7. Burning Girls, by Veronica Schanoes
Let me go with the official description because it's better than what I could come up with: This story "is a fascinating dark fantasy novella about a Jewish girl educated by her grandmother as a healer and witch growing up in an increasingly hostile environment in Poland in the late nineteenth century. In addition to the natural danger of destruction by Cossacks, she must deal with a demon plaguing her family." YEAH. And it's REALLY GOOD.

8. Sauerkraut Station, by Ferrett Steinmetz
Little House on the Prairie in space, is more or less its hook, and it IS that but it is also a million times better than that makes it sound. I had a lot of feelings.

9. Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon
Ursula Vernon won a Nebula for this! And with good reason, holy crap. I mean I love every word Ursula Vernon ever puts down on page or screen but this is definitely a particularly good piece of Ursula Vernon's words. It's... I don't know, it's a fairy-tale-ish story with a strong sense of character and of place, and about identity and about making hard decisions. And stuff. I'm bad at one-sentence plot teasers!

10. Sleeper, by Jo Walton
The official summary: "History is a thing we make—in more senses than one. And from more directions." YEAH. This story starts off slowly but is totally worth the read! It's about a woman in the future writing a biography of a man from the 20th century who had secrets.

So Ursula Vernon's graphic novel/webcomic Digger won the Hugo the other day, ENTIRELY DESERVEDLY. (It was, actually, the category I cared about the most on this year's Hugo slate; if Digger didn't win I was going to be massively disappointed with the world.)

And of course this means I reread the entire thing over the course of the last few days. Just finished the reread now, the first time I've read it since it came to an end a year and a half ago, and gosh that is some quality stuff. Art, storytelling, characters, worldbuilding -- YEP. GOOD STUFF. *happy sigh*

Even if it means I am, once again, ridiculously behind on everything else on the internet.

TOTALLY WORTH IT. Digger is simply -- I cannot even. It is just FANTASTICALLY GOOD in every way. You should check it out!

Jack Layton is dead. I can't even.

Other people are saying far more eloquent things than I could, so I will leave it there.

Here, have a recs-set of HAPPY THINGS:

every aching old machine, by longtime_lurker. Bandom; Pete/Patrick. OLD MEN IN LOVE.

Dolphin-Borne, by carmarthen. The Eagle/Dinotopia; Esca, Cottia, Marcus. DINOTOPIA FUSION.

The Adventures of Lily and Severus (BEST BUDS), by theopteryx. Harry Potter; Lily, Severus. ADORBS WEE COMIC.

Public Displays of Affection, by philomytha. Vorkosigan; Cordelia/Aral, Alys/Simon. MIDDLE-AGED PEOPLE IN LOVE.

untitled, by dakotaaaa. Doctor Who; Amy/Rory. ADORBS DRAWING OF KISSING AND BUNKBEDS.

Choice of Broadsides. NAPOLEONIC WAR CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-ADVENTURE, WHERE BEING QUEER IS AN OPTION. ALSO IT IS RIDICULOUSLY FUN.

Lose My Breath, by deirdre_c. White Nights; Kolya/Ray. Vid, to a source you don't need to be familiar with (and it's not just me saying this). TWO DUDES. DANCING. IT IS AMAZING.

Thing one: Okay, so, Methos. Yes, yes, you're all surprised, I'm talking about Methos again. You know what Methos should have a lot of trouble with? Well, all immortals should have this problem, really. KEEPING UP WITH MODERN VOCABULARY AND SLANG. Because language changes, gradually, over time. And over the course of a mortal person's life, generally they fall behind on modern lingo too, hence why kids always laugh at their parents when they try to talk "hip". Because you lose track of the new words that come into the language.

Now, if a person were really making an effort, they could probably more or less keep up with most, but inevitably when you're tired or drunk or not paying attention, bits of older vocabulary would sneak in without you realizing, because you'd forget that, oh, right, people don't really use that word anymore.

And when you've lived through THE ENTIRETY OF THE LIFE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, that's a lot of old versions of vocabulary and grammar to have carefully and slowly shifted through over your life.

So when you think about it, it's really impressive that when Methos talks, there's nothing about his speech that pings as slightly old-fashioned. But now I really want to see drunk!Methos accidentally using bits of archaic vocabulary.


Thing Two: I was talking about Doctor/Master last night with sentientcitizen, as one does, and -- okay, the Doctor and Master are really not actually healthy for each other, and yet I ship it anyways. Why? One would think that I would want what's best for characters I like, right? But APPARENTLY NOT! Apparently I'm totally okay with the two of them being really fucked up about each other!


Thing Three: ( Spoilers for the Buffy episode Superstar )


Thing Four: What's ridiculous fun: to play First Person Tetris in night mode. (hint: try playing it on non-night-mode first, so you know how this version of tetris works) For the first LONG WHILE of playing it I kept on flailing both verbally and physically because it is so disconcerting. But FUN! And now I'm actually not horrible at it, though I keep on having these moments where my instincts make me suddenly go HORRIBLY HORRIBLY WRONG